Still More Clutter--clippings and whole pages from the sports section!

So here I am, clipping and tearing off whole pages of the newspaper instead of cleaning up--and Annie arrives tomorrow evening.  After reading three letters Daddy sent to us in 1970 (in an envelope I found while looking for pictures of my niece Becky, turning 40,  in the album I made for my sister Missy after her death), I took a deep breath and looked through the sports pages.  (Daddy's letters are more breath-taking than any soccer move.)

"Loss of Brazil's Neymar shifts the focus to Argentina's Messi" by Bruce Jenkins, who describes Messi as "performing magic with a soccer ball, dancing through the opposition as if guided by fairies and elves..."  He writes of Brazil's confusion, sorrow, bitterness and hope after Neymar has had to leave the game because of a fractured vertebra and says the Brazilian team is "hardly one to summon the memories of Pele, Garrincha, Zico, or Ronaldo.  He says that it's "more of a one-man show (with) Neymar rising to the world's elite amid the mediocrity of Fred, Hulk, and Jo...(The Brazilian team without Neymar is ) the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger or the Chicago Bulls without Michael Jordan."  From this column I also learned the Pele goes all the way back to 1962.  He had a leg injury in the World Cup in Peru in the team's second match.
"Dutch dodge pesky Central Americans" from the LA Times.  Here's one quote:  "On Saturday, bidding to become the first CONCACAF team to reach the World Cup semifinals since 1930, the Central Americans certainly didn't play like underdogs with goal-keeper Keylor Navas turning in a remarkable first half in which he frustrated the high-scoring Dutch strikers with four outstanding saves to keep the game scoreless at the break.  And he got better in the second half."

Other headlines from a torn-out page (that will be tacked onto my World Cup bulletin board):  "No Messi needed in win; 1st semifinals since 1990."  (Messi of Argentina...and Barcelona, where steroids were more easily attainable)

"Neymar urges teammates to be champions."    He'll be back playing in 45 days, his doctor says.  Meanwhile, Colombia defender Juan Camilo Zuniga has sent a letter of apology, but Brazil great Ronaldo dismisses the inflicted injury as a "violent one.  We could see on television there was an intention by the Colombia player to actually cause some harm."  (Jenkins, in contrast, says "there was no clear sign of malice on his part.  This had been an extremeley rough game, poorly officiated through the escalation of violence, and some claimed the Colombians had a right to play aggressively in response to some of Brazil's ugly challenges.  Zuniga had both hands on Neymar's back as he fell to the ground, as if to save both men from peril (?), and he offered what appeared to be a heartfelt postgame apology..")  The LA article also mentioned Pablo Alvarez, "the alleged leader of Argentina's infamous football hooligans" who was supposedly deported.